“I think we’re doing a pretty good job,” Ryan said. “We had a 24-yard run on an overloaded blitz (against Buffalo), so I’m not too concerned with it.

“This week, we’ve always gone into it thinking that we’ll give up rushing yards to this team, because it keeps the ball out of (Tom) Brady’s hands. Obviously, we have to do a better job than we did the last time we played New England. The kid (Ben Jarvis Green-Ellis) ripped us for 136 yards. You can give up 80 yards, but you can’t give up that many.

“Am I overly concerned with our run defense? No, we were 31st a couple of weeks ago. Any time you give up like the huge game that we gave up to Oakland, you’re never going to get back to where you think you would be, in the top five or whatever, but you might be able to get back in the top 10 or so.”